Vegas, baby
by planet p
Summary: AU; it's Vegas - the coffee's awful, and so is the company, apparently. Rated for loads of bad language, among other things. Debbie/Cox


**Vegas, baby** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

_What if Debbie had stayed with her mother, rather than Broots gaining custody over her?_

* * *

He's on a business trip, she's simply on business; the business of making money. She bumps him as they pass each other in a busy causeway of foot traffic through a plaza.

"Not today, young miss." His hand darts out, touches hers, stops it mid air, still holding the wallet she should have pocketed already.

She's pissed; not intoxicated, but fucking angry. "Fuck me, will you!" she curses. She should've been faster; just a little fucking faster!

He takes back the wallet with one hand, takes her aside by the arm with the other, hands some notes her way.

She lets it pass; the money's very good, she's good with that sort of thing, counting. She figures she'll blow him, do him, plough him, whatever he wants, for a little more. She drags her tongue over her dry lips, contemplating that.

He's got these blue eyes; they fucking freak her out. Like he's some sort of fucking psycho, or lunatic.

"What'll it be, mister?" she shoots, jerking her chin upward; narrowly avoids biting her tongue, fucking pain in the ass, as it darts out of her mouth again to wet her lips.

"Do you drink coffee?" he's asking, all of a sudden.

She snorts. He's a regular comedian! "Doll me up with a little more of where that came from," she jerks her head, "paper magic, my friend, and I'll drink whatever the bleeding fuck you want me to!"

He winces at her choice of descriptive, and she feels like slapping the bastard. Fucking hypocrite! In that suit, he can fucking talk! He hasn't even the right to fucking _crawl_, if it'd been her world, her fucking choice! "I was thinking more along the lines of-"

She doesn't let him get whatever he's trying to say out; he's fucking _boring_ her. "Whore me out some more of that fucking money, and we're in business, dumb shit! I'll fuck you _here_ – right fucking here, if you want! You want me to fuck you here, in front of everyone! You like the looky, hey? You like them watching?"

Throughout her rant, his face is growing steadily redder. He wants to make his point, but she's not allowing him. "Look, miss," he finally breaks through, waving more cash; her eyes glue to its every movement – oh, fuck, he's wearing a ring! Fuck him she thinks, fuck his missus, useless piece of shit she must be! Until she remembers: wrong hand, motherfucker! "I do not want to fuck you," he continues, without compunction, despite his red face. "I do not want to fuck you whilst anyone watches. I want to buy you a drink, that's it."

She laughs, just a sound, without any meaning. She's learnt not to put any meaning in, so as not to hurt herself. "That's it, motherfucker!"

He starts to turn his head away, or maybe flick his chin – it's a very slow movement, as though pained – his eyes narrowed, or hardened, just so. "Could you… not… talk that way?" he breathes, aggrieved.

She's ready to slap him across the mouth, and slap him good, but he's watching her expectantly, kinda waiting, and she squashes the urge. She can always slap him later, the freak. She'll definitely slap him later.

They walk for a time, without speaking. They're going for coffee, she guesses. He goes into a café, but she doesn't like it – stinking posh bastards wouldn't serve her 'likes,' she can tell it, like a smell – she stays on the street, until he turns, comes back out. She walks away, ahead of him without word.

Up ahead, he goes to start to maybe go into another café, and she keeps walking, steady as anything.

Finally, she stops at one of those mobile frickin' stands she hates, and he orders them both coffees, dubious. She can tell he's wondering if today's the day he'll be poisoned, if today's the day he's gonna die. Hypocrite! Bastard! Stupid insensitive bastard!

She sips the coffee – it's disgusting – wondering if the money's really _that_ good, after all. To put up with this _shit_ the fucking bastard vendor has the cheek to label fucking 'consumable,' fucking coffee! Not in her books! And her books are fucking _good_; she's no fucking illiterate! Fan-fucking-tastic!

He gives up at about halfway through the cup, drops it straight in the trash, grabs her arm, roughly, she thinks. "You wanna fuck, then let's fuck!"

She ditches her cup in the trash on top of his, figures he's pissed with the drink, pissed with the vendor, so he's pissed with her too. Sure, the fucking coffee's her fault! Fuck, even the vendor's her fault! She owns the fucking world, sure! She runs the fucking world! "Fuck you!" she growls, but allows him to lead her away, and finally – she waited outside whilst he got it – through the door of some disenchanted, dirty motel room that'll probably give her a rash, hives, if she's real fucking lucky (she's always 'lucky' that way, and it's the _only_ way she is).

He sits on the bed, real depressed like, watching television for a bit.

She settles beside him – what the fuck! – figures she'll crash, play it _cool_. Whatever the freak wants, for the right price, of course!

He flicks through channels, remote in hand, and peers into the television screen with blearing, un-narrowed eyes, which are, by now, kinda flat, she thinks.

"You know," he begins, out of nowhere, "my baby sister died… a couple of years ago now, I guess. I guess they all think I did it, you know, because we used to _hold hands_! I'm a… fucking child molester, you know!" He laughs; it sounds forced, incredulous, like the swear word.

Her spine gives a tingle, regardless, and suddenly she's fucking freaked out! What if this freak _is_ some kind of psycho, and is only telling her this because he plans to off her later? It makes sense that way, she doesn't see why he'd tell her otherwise.

He tunes out the television, and kinda turns to her and leans over a bit, toward her. Then he's crying, full on crying, into her shoulder, and she's just kinda sitting there, letting him cry, feeling like a fucking idiot, and thinking that he must be an even bigger moron!

They stay like that for a long time – too long – him crying, and her just taking it, because she doesn't know what else to do. Then she undoes the silver shooting star pin from her top and plants it in his hand, says to him, "Look, this was from my useless shit social worker. Why don't you have it, I'm sick of it. In fact, I'm sick of the prick, too. You know, he probably _was_ a child molester!"

She thinks about that one for a long moment, and comes to the conclusion that he could have been, for all she knew. Her mom was a drug addict, she was eight, what the fuck would she remember? All she remembers is the fucking aliens rejecting her – the fucking aliens! Bastards! She would have gone with them, she screams in her mind, just to get away from her fucking drug addicted mother, the bitch!

But they didn't want her.

"Do you want me, or not?" she growls, pinning the stupid pin to his jacket and pushing him off her.

His eyes are shiny and flat. He sniffs momentarily, then, as if deciding something, he takes off his jacket and folds it over his arm and lays it on the bed beside him.

She takes that as an affirmative. She figures that rules out the whole alien thing she'd been contemplating idly. But maybe it wasn't aliens, after all. Maybe it was an angel. She wants to laugh, but she'd probably scare him off. And the money's too good for that.

She's starving, and she's fucking pissed off, and so fucking tired at the same time. She looks at him and favours him with a kiss. She's not Julia-bloody-Roberts; she takes what she can get.

He happily accepts the kiss – or maybe he's just too tired, too depressed not to – and lays back on the bed.

_Another day in Vegas, baby,_ she thinks. _Another day in Hell._

Only in Hell would the coffee be so bad. She can taste it in his kiss.

She doesn't know that he's happy to take a little of her Hell over his, she doesn't know that he works for Hell.

* * *

_Thanks for reading. My apologies for the bad language._


End file.
